A. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to a book, magazine or other printed media which incorporates an electronic display and a circuit arranged to provide various images on the display. More particularly, the present invention pertains to an electronic book with an integral display arranged to show still or moving images display-keyed to particular pages of the book.
B. Description of the Prior Art
Books, and especially children""s books, as well as encyclopedias, dictionaries, technical manuals, and textbooks, are frequently provided with visual materials. These materials may provide additional information, generally enhance the experience of reading a book and make the book easier to understand. For example, children""s books often include color pictures and illustrations associated with a particular story. Encyclopedias and textbooks include pictures, illustrations, maps, drawings, charts and other graphic representations of the materials and subject matter discussed therein. However, even with modern printing techniques, incorporating such visual material into a book is difficult and labor intensive. The process of incorporating graphic material in a book is further complicated if this visual material is in color. Moreover printing books with color materials is also expensive and often results in very poor images.
In many instances would be advantageous to Provide a book capable of showing moving images and/or other multi-media presentations. However, moving images cannot be provided using existing printing technologies.
In many instances, it may also be advantageous to incorporate into a book means of providing not only visual but also audio materials, (i.e., sounds). Some crude attempts have also been made to provide books with the capability of replaying sounds consisting of an LP record and a needle. The needle was placed on the record and the record was manually rotated. Since it was very hard to rotate the needle at a constant speed, the pitch of the sounds produced by this arrangement was uneven and hence it was difficult to understand. Moreover, the apparatus did not include an electrical amplifier but instead the sounds were produced by the mechanical vibrations of the needle. Thus the quality of the sound produced by this apparatus was completely unacceptable.
Attempts have been made to make all electronic books which are essentially hand-held devices consisting of a screen for displaying text and a memory in which alphanumeric characters corresponding to a book are stored and retrieved on request. These devices are very expensive at the present time, they require special memory devices, and are not very practical.
In view of the above disadvantages of the prior art, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a book or other similar printed media which is capable of displaying various images electronically.
A further objective to provide a book with a single display capable of showing images keyed to specific pages of the book.
A further objective is to provide a book capable of presenting a multi-image presentation composed of stills, moving images and/or sounds.
Other objectives and advantages of the invention shall become apparent from the following description of the invention.
Briefly, an electronic book constructed in accordance with this invention includes a plurality of pages bearing some printed matter and bound to form a book. An electronic display with a controller is attached to the book and it displays images. The images are selected based on signals received from a page sensor which can detect the page being viewed by the reader. Alternatively, a sensor is provided which detects particular indicia on a given page. In yet another alternative embodiment, a manual image selector is provided which is manipulated by the reader.
Multiple images can be displayed in sequence to show moving images. Speakers may also be provided for reproductive sounds.